


You Can Have Them All, but I Got What You Need

by ken_ichijouji (dommific)



Series: Vodka Infused with a Dash of Bitters [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A shitload of song lyrics like so many this time, Angst, Christmas, Christmas Party, How is that a tag and I didn't cause it?, Jersey Italian Celestino Cialdini, Let us toast!, M/M, Minor Phichit Chulanont/Christophe Giacometti, Phichit Chulanont is a Little Shit, Resolution, The Angst is Over!, Yuuri getting beat by a clue by four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-25 19:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dommific/pseuds/ken_ichijouji
Summary: Grand Prix's booked for a company Christmas Party, and Yuuri has a reckoning or twelve.





	You Can Have Them All, but I Got What You Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thehobbem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehobbem/gifts).



>  
> 
>   
> [Updated Spotify Playlist is available.](https://open.spotify.com/user/12168581471/playlist/091tI3OPknWVtnBQJUQ06g?si=9vVW_576T9qUcWICV2Ab3w)  
> 

There are specific moments more than anything that make Yuuri feel like the idiotic cliche of a New Yorker protagonist written by an MFA student in creative writing. 

The day junior year of college that his flutist-in-the-NYU-music-program-boyfriend dumped him, and Yuuri left his Gramercy Green apartment drying his tears with an old, wrinkled napkin from Dean and DeLuca is pretty high up there. The afternoon he walked into the cafe at Bergdorf’s for lunch and was seated next to Yoko Ono is a close second.

This particular instant in time on this plane of reality has possibly unseated Seb and the woman who ended the Beatles.

It is Christmas time in the city, and silver bells ring-a-ling at an annoying rate. The store windows are nonpareil, and Yuuri admires them as walks to Grand Prix with his work shoes in a shoulder bag so they don’t get wrecked by salt and slush. His boots are second-hand Moncler all-weather hikers that he couldn’t believe he found in that off-beat Williamsburg thrift shop, his coat makes him look four sizes larger than he is, and on every street corner he hears children sing over the Vince Guaraldi Trio from that oddly Jesus-laden 50 year old cartoon with the bald child in yellow.

_Christmastime is here! Happiness and cheer! Fun for all that children call their favorite time of year!_

Back home if he was lucky, he’d be picking out a present for one person, ordering a cake laden with strawberries and sugar sculptures, and fighting for a bucket of KFC. He thinks of platinum hair and blue eyes, about things he wants that aren’t tangible and can’t ever be. He thinks of how it’s all worth it, as long as Victor is happy.

Yuuri wanders past windows, light displays, Scotch-Guarded bows on lampposts. 

It’s all some kind of cosmic joke. Victor’s Jewish; Yuuri’s in love. 

Yuuri enters the bar, takes off his beanie, and goes to the restroom to fix his stupid hair that’s gone haywire thanks to static and sweat. He can’t make it work down, so he pulls out the Emergency Gel Phichit houses in a drawer and slicks it back. He keeps his glasses on tonight since yesterday was Stress Migraine Town Population Him, and he changes his shoes, putting the gross ones in the employee coat check along with his other belongings. 

When he enters his working area, he’s greeted by Phichit’s bright smile, black cashmere three-quarter sleeve shirt and perfectly-tailored trousers, and annoyingly aggressive love of Carly Rae Jepson. 

_Now I know what a fool I’ve been, but if you kissed me now, you’d fool me again. Last Christmas, I gave you my heart…but the very next day, you gave it away—_

“Why,” Yuuri says. It’s not a question, more a flat statement from a well of chagrin that will never possibly run dry.

“I agree,” says Victor. He doesn’t look up as he runs their inventory. They’re booked tonight for a private party…well. It's one of dozens during December. This is the most lucrative time of the year by far, and Yuuri’s already made enough to cover airfare home for his parents’ big anniversary do in March. He also paid his rent until after that trip because January is deader in this industry than Al Franken’s political aspirations. Risking eviction makes less sense than just paying in advance and being a little light in his savings. At least, until tonight when that startup across the street spends $40,000 before added gratuity during their six hour soiree. 

Yuri, who is not legally old enough to serve until March, will be passing out lamb lollipops and canapés because they need all hands on deck. There will be a back bar set up in the dining room for half their crew, while the other half do their thing here. 

The company is called Indigo Storm and is a video game developer who launched a 10/10 Game of the Year title in August. They have money to blow. Chris and Victor came up with three appropriately colored cocktails as well as a Jell-O shot to pass out upon arrival. There will be endless champagne, there is no sit down food, and with his endless connections, Victor managed to get the most in-demand house DJ from Mono + Mono for the revelers. 

Festivities begin at eight, last until two, and Yuuri will be blessed if he gets home by five because of the mess they’ll cause. 

Piano and sleigh bells blare through the sound system. It is _the song_. The one everyone cannot escape within the US beginning in November by one Ms. Mariah Carey.

Victor freezes and gives Phichit an uncharacteristic look suggesting he die suddenly and swiftly.

Yuuri sighs and rubs his temple.

Phichit is blissfully unaware, as Chris has pulled him into a dance. Yuuri wonders what’s going on there for a second, as they’re like… _couple-dancing_ , not dicking around.

_I won't make a list and send it to the North Pole for Saint Nick! I won't even stay awake to hear those magic reindeer click! 'Cause I just want you here tonight, holding on to me so tight…what more can I do? ’Cause baby all I want for Christmas is yooooooooou!_

At some point, Yuuri moved next to Victor. They wear matching expressions of annoyance and bitterness. Phichit, who is likely part ant for how scary his upper body strength is, dips Chris, and they continue bopping together in blissful unawareness.

Yuuri sighs.

“Between my culture and my birthday, I honestly hate this month,” Victor grumbles. He gives Yuuri a glance that Yuuri thinks maybe lingers, and then he adds, “Especially last year and now.”

“I don’t celebrate really,” Yuuri admits. He’s not fond of holidays as a rule, but this one in particular leaves him cold given his dumb feelings and the man whose smile shatters him every time he sees it standing within half a foot of him right now. “The music bothers me. It’s inescapable.”

“It could be Perry Como,” Sara chirps as she pulls her hair into a twist. They’ll be slinging so much alcohol leaving it down will make her miserable guaranteed.

“Or Bing Crosby, he hit his kids,” Celestino provides in this horrifyingly chipper voice given the subject matter. Every single one of them, Phichit and Chris included, give him the _what the hell, man_ face. “Too soon?”

“You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain,” Phichit remarks before he regains his footing for more dancing, romancing, whatever the shit is going on there.

The DJ, a handsome guy with an undercut who’s about Phichit’s stature starts bringing in his equipment. He’s known in his circle as The Dark Horse. It’s after sunset yet he has on a pair of Ray Ban aviators, he’s somehow not dying of exposure in his Moto jacket, and he sets up his rig in the corner. 

The question of a God existing is now definitively answered as far as Yuuri is concerned, because this guy is saving him from sad Christmas love song hell via sound test utilizing a Fall Out Boy cover of a pop song written before Yuuri was born.

_I've done alright up to now, it's the light of day that shows me how…and when the night falls, loneliness calls—_

Victor actually reacts _worse_ to this than the Christmas garbage. He seems to lose his breath, and he drops his iPad a little too hard on the counter. “Excuse me please,” he manages like he’s chewing glass as he borderline runs to dry storage.

Everyone’s confused, no one more than Yuuri, but like Pete Wentz is a siren he follows after Victor anyways. He’s been off since the fall, but this isn’t right. He’s much better at swallowing whatever shit it is when work needs to be the priority. Victor is in the cage that they lock for the liquor with his hands plugging his ears. Yuuri taps his shoulder. “Victor?”

“I think I’m going to give my notice,” Victor says. 

Yuuri balks at the seeming non-sequitur, but it’s for the best. Maybe Yuuri can learn to move on if he’s not spending 60 hours a week with him. Maybe Yuuri can lie to himself easier this way. “I’m sorry you’re not happy here.”

Victor seems to cycle from freaked out to just shy of enraged. “Don’t pretend that suddenly you care if I’m _happy_ , Yuuri.”

Yuuri swallows, takes two steps back. “Don’t tell me what I care about.”

“As far as I can see, the only thing that matters to you is yourself,” Victor spits. “I didn’t expect Katsuki Yuuri to be so selfish. Such a selfish human being.”

Yuuri thinks of all the times he’s cried, ached, pined, prayed things could be somehow different. He thinks of leaving an NYU dorm in tears and how this has been at least a million times worse, falling more each day in spite of the distance between them, the knowledge he can’t be what Victor needs, and the accusation of being selfish makes something snap. “This is the most selfless thing I’ve ever done,” he barks at Victor. “You don’t know the first thing about me if you think I’m some heartless pile of trash.”

“I know that a year ago you sparked me to life, two months ago you stole my heart, and then less than 12 hours later you drop-kicked it into a sewer,” Victor replies with just as much anger. “I know I watch you day in and day out after professing to not want me! I know that I fell in love with you and nothing about that matters to you aside from whatever fun you got out of me!”

“A year ago, what are you even talking about? I never met you until the day yo…you…” Yuuri trails off.

A year ago, Grand Prix had hired out him, Chris, and Sara for an event in the Hamptons. It was a classy kind of boring cocktail thing for a magazine at a house that may as well have been Jay Gatsby’s reproduction of Hotel de Ville in West Egg. The one next door was even grander and having such a raucous thing that they could hear it from acres away. 

Yuuri had also gotten his last ever “thanks but no thanks” from a ballet company that morning.

Sara was the one who started it, highjacking a golf cart to gatecrash. Chris drove, and Yuuri sat backwards as he let himself get too drunk too early thanks to hot pink Cristal cocktails. He vaguely remembers his past life as a dance major rearing its head. Nothing else has stuck, though weirdly sometimes when he sees Victor the lyrics from that song Dark Horse played will get stuck in his head. Like it’s supposed to mean something.

“Did we meet in the Hamptons?” Yuuri asks. It’s dim — he thinks there were maybe a lot of golden lights and some kind of…did he dance with a guy for a while?

“Don’t play games with me,” Victor says. His voice is choked. “You danced with me all night. You never gave me your name. Just…vanished. Until here.” He laughs then, and it’s bitter like the radicchio on one of their house salads. “Then you slept with me and ditched me after, because I was enough of an idiot to let you pull the same trick twice.”

“I don’t remember the Hamptons,” Yuuri admits. “I was…really drunk.” Victor’s answering laugh is also a scoff. “But I…that night in October wasn’t meaningless to me.”

“Sure it wasn’t.” Victor’s smile makes him look old. There’s nothing genuine in it. His eyes are lifeless. His lips are too tight and drawn back like a dog that feels threatened.

“Do you really want everything you built questioned because of me?” Yuuri asks. “You mentored me, we had sex, now I’m being scouted by the Beard Foundation. What do you think people will say?”

“The same things they did to Tom Colicchio and Lori Silverbush,” Victor says without missing a beat. “You know, things like ‘congratulations, you make a great team and look beautiful together. When’s the wedding’?”

Yuuri feels blood drain from his face. Lori was a waitress at Gramercy Tavern paying her way through film school in the early days when Tom was part owner. They met. They fell in love. They wed at Martha’s Vineyard and are a celebrated couple in the culinary world of Manhattan. 

Chris’s talk with him comes back to Yuuri as fast as the Uptown Express.  _You could be happy. Both of you. Talk to him. Let him decide, okay?_

Yuuri is too stupid to live, let alone for Victor to love. He wasted months by not remembering, by being afraid, and now by being too blind to see what the right thing was all along. “Do you still want me?” Yuuri manages.

Victor shakes his head a few times. “Why do you think I said I’m going to quit? I can’t do this anymore, I can’t be this close without —”

Yuuri doesn’t consciously decide to push Victor up against the shelves of cognac, but then his mouth finds Victor’s and it’s like how when he returns to Hasetsu that in spite of any changes he slides back into his family and their lives as if he never left. He came to New York to chase a dream and in the time since, he’s let go of that in favor of some better-fitting ones. 

At this moment with the smells of cardamom and pepper lingering, glass bottles rocking behind Victor’s back as he grips Yuuri’s waist like he’ll run again if he doesn’t, Yuuri thinks about Christmas in Japan being for couples. He thinks maybe the dream coming true right now means he can find a gift for Victor after all.

He has no idea how long this goes on, not nearly enough because they have so much wasted time to make up for, but then a loud voice with a heavily-softened Jersey accent says “Fellas?”

It’s Celestino. Next to him is Phichit taking picture after picture with his iPhone that is 100% somehow not put away as it would be any other shift. Behind Phichit is Chris, who looks like he might honestly explode from relief.

“Before you work Victor up so much he pokes a hole in something,” Celestino comments with such a shit-eating wryness Yuuri considers throwing the Rémy Martin at his head, “the party’s about to start.” The peanut gallery begins to exit, but Celestino lingers. “It’s not even worth my time to separate you to ensure the guests are cared for, is it?”

Yuuri’s face is bashful, Victor’s is smug. “I’d keep finding excuses to go be near my Yuuri, yeah.”

“The honesty is as appreciated as my efforts would be futile,” Celestino says with a smile. “Come on, then.”

Victor follows Celestino, Yuuri bringing up the rear with their hands entwined. The party is crazy and loud with liquor spilled all over the damn place to the point where Yakov’s floor people will have their kids put through college solely thanks to extra fees that will be paid to scrub them. On top of the auto-gratuity, there is so much cash handed to them or put in the jars by the time they move on to their after party, Yuuri almost needs a fainting couch to handle his share. 

Yakov is disgustingly happy in his own way, and he insists on letting them all drink on the house before they go home. Victor tries to excuse himself and Yuuri, but Lilia's glare makes them sit like kids in time out at school. Instead of high end whiskey or tequila, she pours everyone (except Yuri) a shot of yellow Chartreuse. It matches her favorite color, an acid green she accents her outfits with when she works the floor. It’s expensive by shot standards, it’s sweet so it goes down like a homesick mole, and it isn’t pretentious bullshit like Fernet.

Lilia raises her shot glass and they all follow suit except Yuri, who exasperatedly raises a Shirley Temple. “Давайте выпьем за то, чтобы мы испытали столько горя, сколько капель вина останется в наших бокалах!”

 _May we suffer as much sorrow as drops of wine we are about to leave in our glasses,_ is the English translation of the toast. They knock back the shots, Phichit and Chris actively begin making out (“People eat on that table!” Josef complains), and Yuuri looks at Victor at the same moment Victor looks at him. Victor nods his head towards the employee coat closet. Yuuri nods his agreement. 

Their friends are loud as they relate horror stories from their jobs. Emil calls Seung Gil for some treats that cause Yakov and Celestino to both cover their ears until he hangs up. Victor helps Yuuri into his coat, and Yuuri knots Victor’s scarf around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss upon his satisfaction. 

A band with thick Sheffield accents follows them out of the door until it shuts behind them singing this ridiculous old song Yuuri normally finds schmaltzy. Tonight, though…it’s nice as Yuuri’s fingerless knit gloved hand fits inside Victor’s Ted Baker London leather-covered one. The lights and bells don’t bother him anymore, warming him as they enter the brownstone where Yuuri is touched to find Makkachin remembers him from October. 

They have to return to work in not nearly enough hours to recover properly, but it’s all right. There will be scores of other Sundays to sleep in, get some brunch, kiss in a park. In the meanwhile, they have this: the master bedroom that takes up the entire third floor of a south-facing brownstone, a city that’s oddly quiet in spite of how it never sleeps, and their hearts beating at the same speed and intensity, finally whole and light, while that old song redone by those dudes echoes in Yuuri’s ears.

_Baby, I'm yours (baby, I'm yours), and I'll be yours (yours) until two and two is three. Yours (yours) until the mountain crumbles to the sea…in other words, until eternity…baby, I’m yours._

**Author's Note:**

> Only one more to go for this series.
> 
> For Robbie, who's been my rock the last month or so. <3
> 
> The songs in order:
> 
> "Christmastime is Here" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio  
> "Last Christmas" covered by Carly Rae Jepson  
> "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey  
> "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" covered by Fallout Boy  
> "Baby I'm Yours" covered by the Arctic Monkeys
> 
> The title is the same song as Yuuri's first POV fic in this series, The Weekend's "The Party and the After Party."


End file.
